Took a pay cut to work remote, and I'm not sure I'd do it again

Moved from a Chicago office job at $78k to a fully remote role at $65k back in March. I figured the savings on parking and lunches would cover the gap, but my electric bill jumped $60 a month and I bought a second monitor and a decent chair for $400. The real kicker is my boss now expects me to answer messages by 7 AM because I'm 'already at home'. I miss the hallway conversations that solved problems in five minutes instead of a day of Slack tag. Anyone else trade salary for flexibility and end up with worse hours and a thinner wallet?

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blake3222mo ago

Boundaries ended up being the fix for me. I told my boss flat out that I answer messages between 8 and 6, and if something lands outside that, I'll get to it when I'm clocked in. Took about two weeks of me ignoring the 6:45 AM pings before he stopped sending them. And I stopped trying to replace the hallway talks. I just started sending quick voice memos to people instead of Slack threads, and that cut a lot of the back and forth. The pay cut still stings sometimes, but the gas money and the winter commute were worse for me. I'd probably do it again, but only with those rules in place from the start.

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